Twine

Twine is a utility for publishing Python packages to PyPI and other repositories. It provides build system independent uploads of source and binary distribution artifacts for both new and existing projects.

Why Should I Use This?

The goal of Twine is to improve PyPI interaction by improving security and testability.

The biggest reason to use Twine is that it securely authenticates you to PyPI over HTTPS using a verified connection, regardless of the underlying Python version. Meanwhile, python setup.py upload will only work correctly and securely if your build system, Python version, and underlying operating system are configured properly.

Secondly, Twine encourages you to build your distribution files. python setup.py upload only allows you to upload a package as a final step after building with distutils or setuptools, within the same command invocation. This means that you cannot test the exact file you’re going to upload to PyPI to ensure that it works before uploading it.

Finally, Twine allows you to pre-sign your files and pass the .asc files into the command line invocation (twine upload myproject-1.0.1.tar.gz myproject-1.0.1.tar.gz.asc). This enables you to be assured that you’re typing your gpg passphrase into gpg itself and not anything else, since you will be the one directly executing gpg --detach-sign -a <filename>.

Features

  • Verified HTTPS connections

  • Uploading doesn’t require executing setup.py

  • Uploading files that have already been created, allowing testing of distributions before release

  • Supports uploading any packaging format (including wheels)

Installation

pip install twine

Using Twine

  1. Create some distributions in the normal way:

    python -m build

  2. Upload to Test PyPI and verify things look right:

    twine upload -r testpypi dist/*

    Twine will prompt for your username and password.

  3. Upload to PyPI:

    twine upload dist/*

  4. Done!

Note

Like many other command line tools, Twine does not show any characters when you enter your password.

If you’re using Windows and trying to paste your username, password, or token in the Command Prompt or PowerShell, Ctrl-V and Shift+Insert won’t work. Instead, you can use “Edit > Paste” from the window menu, or enable “Use Ctrl+Shift+C/V as Copy/Paste” in “Properties”. This is a known issue with Python’s getpass module.

More documentation on using Twine to upload packages to PyPI is in the Python Packaging User Guide.

Commands

twine upload

Uploads one or more distributions to a repository.

twine check

Checks whether your distribution’s long description will render correctly on PyPI.

twine register

Pre-register a name with a repository before uploading a distribution.

Warning

Pre-registration is not supported on PyPI, so the register command is only necessary if you are using a different repository that requires it. See issue #1627 on Warehouse (the software running on PyPI) for more details.

Configuration

Twine can read repository configuration from a .pypirc file, either in your home directory, or provided with the --config-file option. For details on writing and using .pypirc, see the specification in the Python Packaging User Guide.

Environment Variables

Twine also supports configuration via environment variables. Options passed on the command line will take precedence over options set via environment variables. Definition via environment variable is helpful in environments where it is not convenient to create a .pypirc file (for example, on a CI/build server).

  • TWINE_USERNAME - the username to use for authentication to the repository.

  • TWINE_PASSWORD - the password to use for authentication to the repository.

  • TWINE_REPOSITORY - the repository configuration, either defined as a section in .pypirc or provided as a full URL.

  • TWINE_REPOSITORY_URL - the repository URL to use.

  • TWINE_CERT - custom CA certificate to use for repositories with self-signed or untrusted certificates.

  • TWINE_NON_INTERACTIVE - Do not interactively prompt for username/password if the required credentials are missing.

Proxy Support

Twine can be configured to use a proxy by setting environment variables. For example, to use a proxy for just the twine command, without export-ing it for other tools:

HTTPS_PROXY=socks5://user:pass@host:port twine upload dist/*

For more information, see the Requests documentation on requests:proxies and requests:socks, and an in-depth article about proxy environment variables.

Keyring Support

Instead of typing in your password every time you upload a distribution, Twine allows storing a username and password securely using keyring. Keyring is installed with Twine but for some systems (Linux mainly) may require additional installation steps.

Once Twine is installed, use the keyring program to set a username and password to use for each repository to which you may upload.

For example, to set an API token for PyPI:

keyring set https://upload.pypi.org/legacy/ __token__

and paste your API key when prompted.

For a different repository, replace the URL with the relevant repository URL. For example, for Test PyPI, use https://test.pypi.org/legacy/.

Note

If you are using Linux in a headless environment (such as on a server) you’ll need to do some additional steps to ensure that Keyring can store secrets securely. See Using Keyring on headless systems.

Disabling Keyring

In most cases, simply not setting a password with keyring will allow Twine to fall back to prompting for a password. In some cases, the presence of Keyring will cause unexpected or undesirable prompts from the backing system. In these cases, it may be desirable to disable Keyring altogether. To disable Keyring, run:

keyring --disable

See Twine issue #338 for discussion and background.